screen-readers

Poster: anolian
Dated: Monday February 16 2004 - 19:47:46 GMT

Hi all

Is the Milonic menu accessible to screen-reading devices? This is part of the requirements for anything we do, and I cannot find anything about that on the Milonic site.

Thanks, Mike

Poster: Maz
Dated: Monday February 16 2004 - 20:06:39 GMT

As far as I know its not possible to access javascript, although it is something that will be done when there is a way to do it.

Most of us create a noscript tag under the menu for when javascript is turned off, so there is a secondary menu available. For the long lists I created a site map so the site is still accessible. The advantage is that I don't have to fill every page with long lists but the site is still accessible with fewer html tags.

Regards,
maz

Poster: John
Dated: Monday February 16 2004 - 21:58:17 GMT

This is an item that Andy is well aware of (I'm in the same boat in supporting accessibility on my sites). Try using title= in your aI statements. Seems to work with at least some of the readers (I don't have them all available to test with).

Bottom line - if it's not fully working now, it will be soon.

Poster: Maz
Dated: Tuesday February 17 2004 - 0:51:17 GMT

I'm all for solving the accesibility problem, you got to love this article:

http://www.decloak.com/Dev/CSSTables/CSS_Tables_10.aspx

You've got to wonder why they didn't invest in a decent screen reader that does its job in the first place, instead of all the developers in the world working around them, how about we start a penny for the 'scream-reader' fund for a new screen reader and save ourselves a lot of work on something that still doesn't work

maz

Poster: Maz
Dated: Tuesday February 17 2004 - 22:35:56 GMT

One of the problems for someone without a mouse is to be able tab the menu, well I did it with the first men item using css. So now I'm in, how can I get it to go along each item. I don't see anything on w3, but there may be a solution in php where tabindex=+1.

It looks like I need a value that can be put into css to access the table, further experiments may be needed with scope or accesskey, all I used was tabindex:1 in css & text=<tabindex=1>, in Safari using option tab.

But I can't get it to go to 2. So far no luck with accesskey, I don't understand scope and the menu well enough, but I still think it might be possible. Scope=colgroup/rowgroup/col/row, it looks like it might do something but I've never used it.


maz

Poster: anolian
Dated: Wednesday February 18 2004 - 19:47:08 GMT

Not sure about the questions you raise, but having read some comments on screen readers on another site, I'm not convinced it's that desirable to make all the links accessible on every page anyway.

Some screen reader users suggest that a mass of links which has to be tabbed through at the top of every doc before you reach any content rapidly becomes tedious. Our approach previously was to make the menu title (ie - the bit that doesn't drop) a link to an index page on which were the links that would have been in the drop-down. I suspect that's actually more useable for most people.

I've also seen it suggested that H-tags could be used to group the various menu options under headings, and then most screen readers have a mode that can just scan the titles. I guess you then have to somehow inform the user he can do that unless it's typical to scan the page that way first anyway.

Other solutions I've seen suggested tend to compromise the visual output for normal browsers, which I'm not keen on.

Cheerio, Mike

Poster: Maz
Dated: Wednesday February 18 2004 - 20:23:08 GMT

I was just thinking about that, making the first link to site map, not keen on doing that either, unless I can use a hidden link in the menu, if a hidden link can still be read.

I can access the first menu item using the body td tabindex=1 tag in css.
I know there is a way of adding content from css, I doubt its possible to add a link from css. Of course this may only work well in tabless designs.

Otherwise I would have to put in a site map or similar link for disability menu access to the site map on the first item.

Any ideas anyone?

maz

Poster: John
Dated: Wednesday February 18 2004 - 20:25:00 GMT

I use a simple transparent gif towards the top of my pages...

The screen readers hit this and, since it's a link, it gives the user a chance to bypass all the nav stuff and go right to the content - or not.

Poster: Maz
Dated: Wednesday February 18 2004 - 20:39:53 GMT

Wow an earthquake just rolled on through here.

maz

Poster: John
Dated: Wednesday February 18 2004 - 21:00:11 GMT


You mean for real (or was that just me at your front door)?

Can we assume you are OK?

Poster: Maz
Dated: Thursday February 19 2004 - 0:09:52 GMT

Everything is fine here, its like living on a boat and getting someone elses wake under ground.